Communities spanning the United States remove trees every day, and instead of these trees being used efficiently for lumber, firewood, or mulch, the majority of them are chipped or added to local landfills. The Southeast Urban Wood Exchange is working to minimize the waste stream caused by these daily tree removal norms.

The Exchange hopes to create local urban wood utilization networks, as it urges all wood movement businesses in the U.S. Forest Service’s Region 8 to list their products and services for free at UrbanWoodExchange.org.

Users of the website can search the database to find urban wood providers in their state. The Exchange serves these 13 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. Service listings include Lumber Sellers, Sawyers, Kiln Operators, and Arborists, while product listings include Milled Lumber, Firewood/Chips, and Cut Logs.

“Our goal is to encourage utilization of urban wood on the local level including producing sustainable lumber for use in municipal projects and by professional and hobbyist woodworkers,” said Nancy Stairs, Urban Forestry Program Coordinator of the North Carolina Forest Service (NCFS). “By treating removed urban trees as a resource the costs associated with the removal and disposal of trees are reduced and the amount of urban wood in the waste stream is minimized.”